


16 Years in a Flash

by orphan_account



Category: Star vs. The Forces Of Evil
Genre: Gen, a character-study kinda thing on the 16 years he was chasing hekapoo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-23 22:32:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13199940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: It takes sixteen years to do it, to earn his scissors. Sixteen years has a way of flying by, huh?





	16 Years in a Flash

Fourteen years. Sixteen years. Thirty years.

Marco was gone for thirty years. He'd grown as a person, spiritually, emotionally, physically. He'd changed. A  _lot_.

Not "a lot" as in he could approximate a chart using algorithms based off human brain growth and development and find a beginning point and curve to where he was after everything. "A lot" as in that chart couldn't even  _exist_  because the end point was beyond average human growth. He wasn't an average human.

He'd started off pretty average, sure, could even be called average the first few years of searching. At about 19 is when he tipped above, when he first got his dragon-cycle. It was a tremendous feat, as you not only had to  _find_  such a beast but earn its trust and respect. He'd found her two years prior and had to prove himself worthy to her. Nachos became is closest friend over the next decade, his loyal companion. He told her so much about Home while they were on the hunt. Even her name and tag purposefully reminded Marco day in and day out of home, keeping him grounded.

Nachos' tag was labeled with the numbers 667, representative of the Blood Moon Ball, the night he and Star were bound eternally by the light of the blood moon. It was also the first time he really got a peek at Tom's anger.

 _Tom_. What a  _dick_. A cool dick? Kinda a tool. What? It's true; Tom literally hired a fake counselor who told him he'd surmount to being a trash-boy in life, used him to pass an anger-management class (which he  _failed_ , mind you!), and slightly made up for being such an ass by resurrecting Jackie Hand. Which, yeah, pretty cool. Still a tool.

If it hadn't been for good ol' Tool Tommy, Marco never would've gotten to dance with Star that night, immortalizing their friendship. Best thing Tom had ever done, only slightly above the whole Jackie Hand thing. Depending on which method of voting you used and who you asked, of course.

Marco thought about statistics and his Earth-life a lot the first few years.

' _What are the odds of finding Hekapoo in this realm versus that one?' 'I could really use Mom and Dad's legendary guacamole right about now.' 'Approximately 548 Hekapoo's are left. Who am I kidding, that's not an approximation! Ha!' 'I wonder what life is like on earth right now. Elections are coming up. Maybe it's better to stay here for a while...' 'Only_   _403 left now. With about 515 realms left, give or take a few.'_

Eventually he focused more on a tragedy and instinct, thoughts of his old life fading. Not entirely of course, Nachos kept him grounded. If it wasn't for her, he was sure if he'd ever think about his old home. He grew so much, imagine Star as a 25 year old woman. Imagine how Jackie had filled out. What Ferguson and Alfonzo were doing now, if they moved out of town or not. How much his parents must miss him.

That one kept him up a lot. His parents. It wasn't statistically possible that there were parents more loving than Rafael and Angie Diaz. It just could  _not_  be a possibility. Their love was strong and unconditional, an unwavering force that could stop anything. Well, almost.

They could "love" him back to earth.

God, they were probably heartbroken. He never said goodbye. They didn't have any warning, any consolation, nothing. Their son just... disappeared. Even as he turned thirty it made his heart ache, picturing them older, grayer, sadder.

Only when he knew it was safe, though. Only when his hunt for Hekapoo led him to civilizations unknown, where he conquered the local beast and was rewarded food and a night's sleep in a warm bed or something close enough to it. Never when he lay at night, alert to the wilderness around him, danger looming heavier with every breath. Those nights he stayed still, calm, focused, one eye open as he slept.

He got close to Hekapoo sometimes, she waited around just long enough to see but never touch, she never engaged in battle. He came  _so_  close once, her flame flickering. Then she was gone, and he was surrounded by clones.

When it finally happened, when he extinguished every clone she'd made, Marco felt both extremely proud and extremely empty. It was done, over, finished. No more tireless nights, no more weeks without sleep, and no more thrill or adventure. She engraved the scissors with his name, the hand going from red to a grey-blue. They were his. He'd earned them.

He knew they'd meet again, so he opened a portal back to earth with a swell of emotions.

Joy. Pain. Eagerness. Fear. Love. Anxiety. Determination. Reluctance. Everything was growing and morphing all at once, and that step through was the most afraid he'd been in all his sixteen years on the chase.

He didn't know what to expect, but it certainly wasn't Star. Well, of course he wasn't surprised to see Star, what shocked him was how young she looked.

She told him he'd been gone for eight minutes. He was too shell-shocked to even compute the math of how many of his seconds translated into earth-seconds. (Approximately 504,000,000 Hekapoo-Hunt second to every 1 Earth second, if his math later was correct.)

As his body adjusted to being in his old dimension, he felt warmth spread through his body, his limbs feeling fatigued and his line of sight lowering from shelves on the walls to the top of Star's head.

He was 14 again. He was disappointed and relieved at the same time. He'd lost years of work on his body (which had gotten  _ridiculously_  hot, in his opinion thank you very much), and was back to the round-cheek baby-fat body he'd left behind all those years ago. It was literally like someone turned back the clock.

He had all this knowledge and experience now, that just over eight of Star's minutes ago he hadn't had. He'd lived a lifetime and had nothing really to show for it.

He was beyond elated to see his parents, of course, but a part of him missed the adventures and the thrill of the hunt, missed the fighting and wandering and death-defying stunts he'd had to pull.

He'd also missed his parents and friends, though, so maybe it was best to try to adjust. Apply his other-timeline knowledge to his earth-timeline situations. That was really all he  _could_  do.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not good at math so it might be wrong and if it just correct me please  
> leave a comment on any ships you'd like to see me write!


End file.
